local network

After a couple of false starts, I finally configured a local area network of my own.

The network consists of two Silverstone Sugo boxes running Windows XP SP3; an ARTiGO (Pico-ITX based) server running Fedora 10; and a Linksys WRT54GL wireless router. Most of the network is wired together in the upper room, where the server, wireless router and the main Sugo box reside. The other Sugo box is in the living room, connected to the television set, which serves as a monitor.

I already discussed a couple of entries ago my issues with wireless networking and its crackability, as well as my problems in wiring the house for a computer downstairs. I finally swallowed my doubt and brought the said WRT54GL router recommended in Ars Technica, as well as a wireless modem for the downstairs box. The router turned out to be easy to configure; and I made sure that it accepted my boxes and only them. The wireless card in the downstairs box detected the router at once.

After the physical network was finished, I had to set up a server that would have, among other things, a common Web site and a common folder accessible to both boxes. The first one I set up with Apache, PHP and MySQL. The other one uses Samba. And while setting up the server was a cinch, setting up the Windows boxes was a pain because it had been a long time since I had to set up a Windows box (it involves NetBIOS and other ancient Windows networking horrors) because the two would be able to find the common folder and the Web site.

With all the hard work finished, I can type something, like this entry, in the downstairs box; stash it in the common folder; and then access it from the main box. And there’s more: Samba will let me set up a common printer for the two boxes. And, once I get the common Web site working, I can do some real experiments, esp. with YAZ to connect to the Ball State card catalog directly from my network.

weather

I mentioned also about the light snow that made the roads slick. That was a minor annoyance compared to the frozen drizzle and intense cold that has plagued me this week. It takes twice as long to get to work and back because I have had to drive carefully to avoid flying into a ditch. A lot of people were not careful, and I have had to drive past emergency crews where cars had slid into ditches or into utility poles.

In fact I did drive into a ditch, because I just missed an intersection. Fortunately the ditch was very swallow, and I was able to drive out of it. But I had to dig a lot of grass and dirt out of my front bumper.

work

It is finals week at the University. And work seems to be slowing down. It will not stay slow for long. Once the students are gone, and no longer using the Macs and the printers, I really get to work.

I have updates for the print job release stations which, when done, will put more space between the items in the release station lists. Hopefully, there will be fewer mistaken released print jobs.

I also have a fix for the iMacs which, if it works, will keep them from unbinding with the campus network’s Active Directory server. That way, I will not have to go down and rebind everything every two weeks or so. There is also an update to the Mac OS itself, but I want to look it over first: There are reports of problems with Macs after the update.

I want these out of the way so that I can work on the big Cardinal Scholar project, which involves moving it to another server. I want to ensure that the server and its EPrints software is robust this time before everyone else starts pouring stuff into the repository.

isis

My cat Isis is walking about when she wants to; and she walks when she wants to

eat

do business

wander the house

see what I am doing

Otherwise she sleeps under the base step of the stairs. Sometimes she hides in other obscure places, but the base step is her favorite hideout.
When she walks, she walks very slowly and carefully and a little bow-leggedly. She walks around until she realizes that I have noticed her; then it is back into the bottom stair.

It has been more than a month, and I am a little worried because there does not seem to be much progress. I am I am down to the last three cans of the dietary canned food, anyway, so I may as well schedule a visit to the vet for her to see if there is any progress.